


Backstreet's Back

by feistymuffin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, M/M, Spells & Enchantments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's mouth has landed him in a few things that have been irritating to deal with--hex bags galore, your average bad luck curse, even a mild (temporary) deformity or two just for spite--but nothing takes the cake quite like this one.</p><p>Dean's cursed by a witch and becomes seventeen again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backstreet's Back

They knew right off the hop once they rolled into the small coastal city of Allentown that this was bigger than your average spell-spinner looking for some minor fame and fortune. The witch in question had been giving the stiff to anyone sad enough to have dealt with her in the past. And the list was long, longer by the day. She was famous in a sick, backhanded kind of way, helping those without means get what they wanted with no muss or fuss. But she never named her price until it was payday, and the reason why is obvious. 

She was killing every last one of her customers.

At first Sam thought it was some kind of pact, some human making nice with vampires or maybe keeping some foul thing caged somewhere, a former family member or friend, and killing people in order to keep it fed. But the killings had no pattern, no similarity in the deaths except for how sudden and unpredicted they were. The witch avoided repetition, patterns that could give her away. With that kind of smarts, the brothers assumed by then that they were dealing with a whole coven.

It wasn't until a week into the job that Sam finally came across something in Dad's old journal. Barely a snippet of information, easily overlooked as it was crammed badly into half a page's worth of explanation about ideas for succubus anti-toxin. It mentioned and named an old spell that at first glance meant nothing to either of them, but they sent word along to Bobby and he didn't disappoint.

"Wicked Man's Elixir," he said firmly, over speakerphone. "Used for preservation and prevention of aging for anyone who's nuts enough to hunt down what's needed. Seriously dark magic, and is only performable every seventy years. Any more'n that and you're playin' a heady game with Fate. And it's a one-man spell, so you're not dealing with a group of 'em. Just one big nasty one."

"One witch." Dean whistles. "Well, that also explains why this has never been heard of before in this area."

Sam nods. "Seventy years is too far back to keep random murders like that in record together, and in any detail. Not to mention, the caster would never stick around. People would get suspicious when they turned up almost a century younger."

"That's not the part to worry about," Bobby continues. "The spell needs a mixin' of spiritual ingredients rangin' from priest's bones doused in demon blood to herbs from your backyard. Not to mention the twenty-three souls you need to harvest in two fortnights to power the damn thing. The deaths must be one per day, in whatever way you like, as long as the last death is six days after the one previous. That's also the night you need to do the spell. Under a full and blazin' harvest moon."

Sam looks out the window, but he doesn't need to. It's been four days since the last killing, and they both know the moon's nearly full.

"Shit," Sam supplies, uselessly. 

"Any idea how to sack the bitch?" Dean snaps.

"Surefire bullet through the head oughta do ya fine," Bobby grouses, and the boys hear a book slam closed. "Salt and burn the body just in case. Witches can be wily in the afterlife, and there's a few I've heard of turning to spirits because they considered themselves killed wrongfully."

"They don't aim to make it easy for us, do they?" Dean mutters, and Bobby chuckles at that.

"Just make sure she's dead before you pack it up. Considerin' the heavy stuff she's pullin', she's likely older and wiser than the half the trees in the county. She'll pack a punch if she can get ya."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam says, and they hang up.

The brothers share a look, and a muttered, "Damn."  
 **===**  
Prep for the assault on the witch's hideout--which they've pinned down to a small boat in the local marina--ends up taking way longer than anticipated. They spend an afternoon making small protection amulets and stuffing them into any pocket or scribbling warding seals on any weapon or piece of clothing they can get their hands on. As a back-up, they even pack two small semi-automatics. They have a serious opponent, and in no way are walking in under-prepared. 

Sam insists that they carve some of the more heavy duty sigils into their skin the morning of the assault, but Dean draws the line at maiming themselves. The witch will do plenty of that. He relents, though, and lets Sam draw them all over his back in Sharpie. He then does the same for him.

They attack in broad daylight, only to be sure that the witch hasn't begun the ritual or taken the last soul. While they're both more uneasy due to the lack of cover or stealth, it makes tactical sense and they can't wait a whole day more to gank the bitch before she ganks first.

The boat is small, and creaks instantly when they climb aboard. Dean sees no sign of her above deck, and a nod from Sam shows him one of the portholes open and leaking a putrid tendril of smoke.

They creep slowly, but every step makes a sound come from the wood under their foot. It's no surprise when an old woman's voice calls, "No need to knock, I see. Come on then, and don't track the mud in."

Dean spares Sam a withered look at the false hospitality, but they advance with pistols raised.

Below deck in the farthest room back, a small sitting area, the old woman is perched in a wooden chair, overlooking a frothing potion in a bowl confined by a bloodied pentagram and five candles, herbs littered along the table. She looks up from her spell, her eyes fogged by cataracts and old age. Her skin is completely mottled in liver spots and veined to the point of sickness. Her head is wound in a rather nice shawl done in bright floral patterns. Aside from the occult-ness of it, the scene would look much like a granny enjoying the evening with a hot drink in her boat.

She smiles, and the motion is cold and cruel. "You boys have been busy. I can smell the gunpowder from here. I'm not quite done putting dear Ashton down, though, so if you could just have a seat..." She says the words slowly, carefully, as a grandma might, but then Dean and Sam are thrown back and slammed down into the couch that hugs one wall. They struggle and squirm, but neither one budges.

The witch rises, unsteadily, and feels her way around the table into a cupboard. _She's blind_ , Sam mouths at him, and Dean nods. That could be an advantage once they can get the hell up.

While she's got magic coming out her raisined wazoo, she can't hold a candle to them in a physical fight. So it'll be a matter of her letting her guard down enough for them to get a shot.

She withdraws a small stapled stack of paper from the cupboard and waddles slowly back to her seat. At no prompt from them, she states, "The man's contract, which he signed foolishly. Thirteen years ago I saved him from his addiction to heroin and gave him the love of a woman he desperately yearned for. A simple enough task. Her mind was, while exuberant, relatively empty. And at my promise, he signed without even bothering to ask the price. First time that's ever happened. I hear he has a son now, nearly ten years old. How nice." 

She leans forward, whispers some words into the bowl of what resembles writhing slugs, and leans back again when it ignites. She lights the contract in the flame and squeezes it once in her hand, then lets it go into the bowl. Then she recites as if in normal conversation, _"Payment owed, payment paid. Unknowing customer, you will be slain. Within the terms, within the day, your life will end, and I will stay."_

A mighty wind rushes through the only open porthole, scattering the stray things on the table, but only feeding the fire in the bowl. 

Dean feels it, the utter chill in the air, the unholy shiver than flows down his back. Unexplainable even in the autumn weather, he glances at Sam and finds his brother's eyes wide like saucers with panic. Somewhere in Allentown, the witch's last customer is dying.

The old crone turns to smile at them with delight. "Now isn't this fun. Two handsome young men stray right to me in the last day of the ritual. Unusual, but by no means displeasing." She stands slowly, wanders over to them to lean forward and inhale the air in front of them slowly. She leans back almost immediately, her mouth curling with disdain and her face twitching with anger.

"I know your smell," she hisses, and Dean sees something animal and raw in her eyes. 

The reaction itself warrants his horribly inopportune mouth to open on a grin. "Not a fan, dollface?"

Her hollow gaze snaps to his eyes directly, and the shiver feeling returns in full. His limbs get heavy with weight, with heat, in an instant. But he grins wider. "Did our granddad toss you over? We can imagine, he seems like a bit of a prick from what I've seen. Nice enough guy, but he can be a real ass. You know what I mean?"

Sam elbows him hard, shaking his head even harder. The witch's face opens in a wide snarl. Dean smirks. "He was a bit of a kicker in his young days. And I'm sure even you didn't always look like a deep-fried sack of toothpicks but hey, nobody's perfect."

She opens her mouth and a squealing scream tears out of her throat. Her clawed hand reaches out and clasps onto Dean's forehead, shoving it back into the wall without delicacy. She mutters under her breath quickly, her eyes like brands in his skin, on his face, but then he's groaning, "Sam," and his brother finally gets the hint and shimmies enough to grab his pistol and blow a hole clean through the crone's skull. 

Dean gasps, shoving her off and holding a hand to his head. "Damn," he croaks, and his voice sounds odd. He thinks his ears are ringing. He lowers his head to rest between his knees when nausea hits him like a punch in the gut. He ends up losing his lunch on the floor anyways.

Nearby, he hears Sam puttering around, bagging all the spell crap and her tome before putting it all in a bag in the center of the room next to her body. He runs back outside to get the gas and salt from the trunk and soaks the place in the stuff before helping Dean up, idly salting the corpse, and then tossing a match before backing up the stairs. Dean rests heavily on his shoulder, but Sam's having less trouble with it than he thought. 

It's obvious that in whatever state he's in, he shouldn't be driving, so Sam parks him in the passenger seat and quickly climbs behind the wheel with a muted curse.

"Dude," Dean groans, "whatever it is can totally wait. I'm so burned out. If I got another like, flu hex I'm gonna be so pissed. That other one stuck around for like, two weeks."

Sam doesn't drive, which Dean admits is probably a good thing. He's seriously abhorred to the idea of throwing up in Baby, but then he sees Sam is on the phone.

"Is now seriously the time, man?" Dean snaps, and it doesn't come out as deep, as forceful as he hopes.

Sam holds up a hand, sparing him a glance and a horrified look. That makes Dean's girly insult shudder to a stop. What's wrong with him to make Sam look like that?

"Bobby," Sam says urgently, "something happened. We took out the witch, but, Dean got cursed--" He stops, listens, glancing at Dean again. "You wouldn't believe me. I'm not even sure I believe it."

"What the hell is the problem?" Dean barks, holding onto his throbbing head for good measure. 

Sam sighs, hard. "I have no idea how, but Dean looks like a freakin' teenager again."

Dean pales, hands clambering for the drop-down sun visor and slamming it down to show him--him. 

Him thirteen years ago, that is.

His face hadn't thinned out at seventeen like it had now. He had been slimmer, had less muscle. His eyes were softer, and his face had no lines, wrinkles or creases to speak of. He had freckles fucking galore.

Dear God, Dean thinks, and stares at himself. He smushes his hand into his cheek, pinching the young flesh. 

"Sam," he says, disbelieving as he moves his face, sees his mouth speak. "Sam... _how_...?"

Sam just shakes his head, tells Bobby, "Call me back when you have something," and drives.

They get to the motel, pack everything up and stow it into the Impala. They're out of town before the fire department has the marina fire put out.  
 **===**  
The ride back to Bobby's is tense, full of the speculation and unvoiced fears than neither of them are willing to discuss. Dean's never seen a curse like this and he knows Sam hasn't, not on this scale. A wart, sure. A bad omen to trip down the stairs or stub your toe? Why not. But a full-on time-warp bodytastrophe? Hell no.

Dean's as exhausted as Sam looks when they finally get to Bobby's familiar scrap yard two days later with only one stop to sleep and a handful to eat crappy food. Hauling their tired carcasses inside, they head directly to the living room to fall into the couch. Bobby follows wordlessly, eyes taking Dean apart from how intent they are. Dean suffers the energy to spark a glare up at Bobby.

"Any ideas, Gramps?" his stupidly high voice says, and he winces even as the words come out. Fuck, he thought he'd already hit puberty by this age. 

Bobby's face twitches at the sound of his voice, and he laughs. The son of a bitch laughs. "God, boy, I ain't heard you talk that squeaky since... Hell, I'm old. Alright, never mind that, you two hit the hay. I've got a bit more readin' to do." Bobby shakes his head as if trying to dispel a thought, and wanders off to the den/library.

Sam glances over at Dean, who stands and starts towards the staircase. "Wait, Dean," he says, and Dean pauses.

"Yeah?" he mumbles.

"Uh, never mind, actually," Sam admonishes, a look coming and going across his face.

"Whatever," Dean says, and slumps to bed.  
 **===**  
Two whole days of research tosses up shit-all, even from the book that Bobby found the ritual in, and the curse hasn't worn off either. Dean's getting irritable, but there are some perks to his new situation. For one--now that he's not sick with the spell's initial effects--he's got energy coming out his ears. He doesn't know what to do half the time to burn it all off. And his appetite hasn't decreased at all--if anything, he's eating more than his usual. He wakes up every morning with a hard-on in true teenager fashion, but worse things could have happened, and between he and himself, it's a nostalgic little routine taking care of it. 

Day number three yields no research fruit, and an unexpected visitor.

No one notices he's there until Castiel drops a heavy hand on Dean's shoulder and he jumps a mile high. "Jesus Christ, Cas!"

Castiel's face is priceless as he studies Dean and takes in all the changes. "This doesn't appear to be natural."

Sam snorts. "You don't say."

"You look very different," Cas notes, and Dean rolls his eyes. "Have you always had freckles?"

Dean feels the tips of his ears warm at the unexpected observation. "No. They mostly went away when I hit my twenties. What the hell kind of question is that?"

Apparently noting Dean's discomfort, Cas drops the topic without responding and moves to sit in a chair opposite Dean, beside Sam. "How did this happen?"

"Bitchy old gas bag," Dean grumbles. "Slammed her gross hand on my face and did some verbal voodoo and bam. I'm a Backstreet Boy." All the humour is lost on Cas, but the tone isn't.

"I'm afraid I don't know that I'll be able to help you with this," the angel says slowly, thoughtfully. "This is rather old magic."

Bobby sighs, leaning back in his chair. "We figured that much. The witch herself was doin' some heavy spell castin'. A rejuvenation ritual, needs twenty-three souls and can only be done once every seven decades. Takes her back to her youth."

Castiel fixes him with a hard look. "You're certain that's the spell she was casting?"

Sam shrugs. "Everything fits, up to the page that was open on her book."

"And I assume all the trouble you're having reversing Dean's situation is because--"

"We burned the damn thing, that's right," Dean grumps. 

"Take me through the details," Castiel asks, even though it sounds like more of a statement.

They shed every detail of their hunt, from the day they rolled into town and all their investigating, to the initial moments right after Dean got face-palmed by the grotty old bitch. When they're finished, Castiel is briefly lost in thought.

"She must be ancient," he says first, "to offhandedly wield such a powerful curse. I've heard of things like these before, but not for millennia. Not since the stories of the gods of Rome and Greece." He glances at Sam. "The warding seals could have dealt a hand in making the curse less potent, so I commend you on that foresight, Sam. And, shooting her in the head while she was still intent on the spell wasn't a bad idea either." 

Dean smirks, sensing just a sliver of humour.

Sparing a look at Dean, Castiel says, "The tome she used for the ritual is old, essentially a Grimoire of nearly ancient proportions, and holds a great deal of magical knowledge. There are few in existence today, but I will see if there isn't one to be found." With that, he's gone.

"Outstanding," Dean sighs. "He's about as useful as we are. And that's only if we actually find anything in this book."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Really one for optimism, aren't you?"

"Why don't you take a puberty laxative and then see how optimistic you feel?" Dean snarks, throwing his notepad at Sam, who ducks it and glares at him.

"Knock it off, ya fools," Bobby snaps, and the brothers stop to look at him. "Focus on huntin' down what we need, or else we got bigger problems than one-sided fights."

Sam grudgingly hands him back his notepad.  
 **===**  
Castiel pops up a few hours later, looking irritated, put-out, and empty-handed.

"I'm afraid I can be of little use to you," he says, and the utterly disappointed way he says it makes Dean assume he'd been sure he could have helped. 

Dean shrugs and bites into his sandwich. "Not your fault," he spews around his mouthful. He kind of wants to pat his arm, squeeze his shoulder, something to show that he's grateful for the attempt even though he's disappointed. If anyone could have gotten them the book, it was Cas. Without him, they were pretty much down for the count.

Sam sighs, beats him to it by patting Castiel on the shoulder. Dean feels an infinitesimal twinge of annoyance and immediately ignores it. "You tried, so... thanks. We'll just keep at our research and hopefully we'll find something."

Cas nods, morose. He offers a despondent look to Dean, who sees it and looks away quickly, and disappears. 

That night, Dean, Sam and Bobby are all sitting in the living room, up at some ungodly hour watching bad television. The morale for the spell searching has seriously decreased since they haven't found anything. Not even a mention of the type of curse Dean's under. Despite Dean technically being very underage, he's nursing his fourth beer of the hour.

The entire thing is going bust fast. They're not even sure if Dean can still age, or if this is some kind of timed-out thing, or if it'll kill him in the long run. Or even, in the short run. They just have no clue what they're dealing with, and they can't find anything that'll tell them. 

Dean feels his panic, his tension rise by the hour. Every hour they spend searching fruitlessly, or wasting time on meager things like eating, recreating, or sleeping, is an hour they're not spending on finding out how to fix him. 

But for all that he's worried, pissed off and feeling every day more patronized, he feels... normal. Dean, so far, feels no adverse affects of the curse. Maybe it's just what it appears to be. Maybe he's just seventeen years old again.  
 **===**  
Two weeks into his... condition, Dean's beginning to accept the finality of it. He's outside in Bobby's scrap yard more working on cars, and less inside assisting with the fruitless research. Sam refuses to start hunting again until they find something to give them a nudge in the right direction for the solution to Dean's problem.

"It's like you don't even care about fixing this anymore," Sam grumbles.

Dean looks past the lifted hood to raise his eyebrows blandly at his brother. "There's nothing much to fix, Sammy. How do we know it's fixable? How do we know that she didn't somehow just... send me back a decade with change? And how would we go about reversing it anyways? Even Cas said he can't do shit. That says to me that there's very little to do about it."

Sam growls, slamming his foot into the Ford Fiesta's tire and snapping, "That's it, Dean. We _don't_ know anything about this curse, but there's no fucking way that it isn't recorded somewhere. We just have to find it."

"And how long's that going to take? Thirteen years?" Dean shakes his head, laughing. "No, Sam, we're running out of options. There's only so many books you can bruise your nose in. Just drop it, and we can keep going like we usually do."

"So how's hunting factor into all this, huh?" Sam uncharacteristically makes a reckless hand gesture, moving as if to knock something off an invisible table. It's so unlike him, and so much like Dad, that Dean's mind blanks for a few long seconds. "Technically now I'm nine years older than you. How d'you expect someone to believe you're an FBI agent? A Federal Marshall? Hell, even a fucking priest? You would be able to do absolutely no investigating. Unless the local teenagers need to be hit on."

Which reminds Dean how long it's been since he got any, and now he's reduced to fishing well below his target--and preferred--age, unless he wants to entice cougar-ish women. He feels his face fall drastically.

Sam snorts. "Yeah. Didn't think of that, did you?" 

Dean rolls his shoulders to shirk off the stabbing look. "Listen, that stuff kind of sucks but it's not like we can't work around it somehow. I'm still me. I still have all my moves and skills. I'm just... a newer model."

"Unbelievable," Sam grunts, rolling his eyes. Then movement behind Dean catches his eye, and he smirks. "Maybe you can talk some sense into this guy's fat head."

Looking behind him, Dean's relieved and irritated to see Castiel, equipped with his "happy to be here but shit sucks" look. He sighs heavily and rubs his eyes. "What are you doing here, Cas?"

The angel's expression becomes somewhat normal. "I just wanted to make sure you were safe."

Dean smothers his anger--at Cas' comment and the blatant _I told you so_ look that Sam gives him--in favour of a shit-eating grin. "What? Seriously? Guys, I'm seventeen again, not defenseless."

Castiel looks unimpressed anyways. He shuffles on his feet slightly. "I've been doing some looking into your problem situation, and I think there may be something I can do to help after all."

"Really?" Sam exclaims. "Cas, that's great."

"What is it?" Dean asks, with some caution.

Cas sighs. "The curse that the witch laid on you wasn't necessarily a curse, though I think she intended it to be. What she unwittingly ended up doing was sapping some of the power from her ritual spell to fuel the curse she intended to lay on you. However, since Sam interrupted her spell casting by killing her, the incantation wasn't completed and therefore the curse never laid. So, the energy she stole from her rejuvenation had to funnel out somewhere, which it did. Directly into you."

"How do you know all that?" Sam asked.

Castiel clears his throat. "I did some... travelling. I went back to the scenario to thoroughly study the event. This is what I believe happened. Consider yourself lucky, Dean; the curse she was preparing would have killed you and Sam instantly."

Dean and Sam share a brief look. "So what does that mean for my... condition?"

"I think I should be able to "take back" the spell power from you, and doing so will revert you to your correct age." Cas holds up his hand as if he intends to do so immediately.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," Dean says quickly, backing up. "What happens to you?"

A tender look crosses Castiel's face before it's gone, a moment later. "Nothing. I will simply take the power. Angels don't age, Dean."

"Right," he mutters, feeling stupid. "Uh... Yeah, go ahead, I guess."

Dean steels himself for Cas' touch, fearing some shredding pull within him as the power from the spell is taken. He imagines screaming in pain as he's vastly aged in a nanosecond, thinks with panic to when he was an old man for an unnervingly long amount of time. He imagines all kinds of horrifying shit to go in hand with being de-cursed. 

Cool fingers brush his face, gently, soothingly. They reach up to his ear, where they rest, and he feels Cas' palm rest on his jaw. A tickling, watery sensation flows out of him, up his body, and his jaw grows cool and shivery-feeling. He opens his screwed-shut eyes to see big blue irises looking at him softly. Cas' face is so open, surveying him and his reaction to the angel's touch. The cool retreats with finality into Cas' hand, and Dean feels reluctance in the way it pulls back. He watches the expression on Castiel's face leak away, to be replaced with his indifferent soldier look.

Dean pushes a hand against his own face and feels rougher skin, a stubbly chin, and a thrice-broken nose. He sighs. "I guess I don't need to ask, but how do I look?"

Sam laughs. "Old."

Castiel doesn't say the word, but his warm appraisal does. 

_Perfect._

Dean has to smother his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the fake town's name is from a Billy Joel song. Yes, apparently there is a real Allentown in Pennsylvania. No, it's not that one.
> 
> This work is inspired by this post: http://yaoicastiel.tumblr.com/post/26358258833/au-meme-a-witch-curses-dean-de-aging-him-to


End file.
